Wikileaks Unloads 90,000 Afghanistan War Docs

Four months after the release of the now-infamous "Collateral Murder" video, which is said to have detailed a U.S. coverup of civilian death, Wikileaks has released more than 90,000 largely classified documents from the war in Afghanistan.

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It's time to start shipping Alka-Seltzer to the Pentagon by the boatload. Internet whistleblower Wikileaks has outdone itself yet again. Four months after the release of the now-infamous "Collateral Murder" video, which is said to have detailed a U.S. coverup of civilian death, the site has released more than 90,000 largely classified documents from the war in Afghanistan.

Wikileaks is currently down, but The New York Times, The Guardian newspaper in London, and the German magazine Der Spiegel were all given access to the documents under embargo prior to their publication on the the PRQ-hosted site.

"These reports are used by desk officers in the Pentagon and troops in the field when they make operational plans and prepare briefings on the situation in the war zone," the Times wrote in a note on its Web site. "Most of the reports are routine, even mundane, but many add insights, texture and context to a war that has been waged for nearly nine years."

Among other things, the documents, which Wikileaks published on Sunday, point to U.S. suspicion that Pakistan's military may have played a role in guiding the Afghan insurgency, in spite of the more than $1 billion a year the U.S. sends to the country to help combat it, according to Times. The Pakistani government has "allowed" members of its spy service to attend strategy sessions with the Taliban, the documents said.

The information appears to come from "sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants," though the sources are considered reliable by the military, the Times said.

The reports detail Pakistani involvement in the planning of Al Qaeda attacks.

"The reports suggest, however, that the Pakistani military has acted as both ally and enemy, as its spy agency runs what American officials have long suspected is a double game  appeasing certain American demands for cooperation while angling to exert influence in Afghanistan through many of the same insurgent networks that the Americans are fighting to eliminate," the Times wrote.

Also detailed are an indictment of retired Pakistan general Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul and a network of suicide bombers.

Brian Heater has worked at a number of tech pubs, including Engadget, Laptop, and PCMag (where he served as Senior Editor). Most recently, he was as the Managing Editor of TechTimes.com. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Lucy.
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